A thin middle-aged man was dragging a rickshaw along the street. The temperature in early spring was still very low. He was only wearing a single shirt, but his vest was so hot that it was soaked with sweat.
Zhou Hexuan was sitting on a rickshaw, with his arms filled with all kinds of daily necessities. Seeing how hard the rickshaw driver was working, he couldn't help but ask: "Master, how is your daily life?"
"Sir, are you talking to me?" The coachman lowered his speed and turned around to ask.
"Yes." Zhou Hexuan said.
The coachman wiped the sweat from his forehead and said with a smile: "I'm just a puller. I'm not a master. You're too polite."
Zhou Hexuan asked: "How is business usually?"
"It's okay," the coachman said in a helpless tone, "the tram tracks in the city are getting longer and longer, and our business of pulling the tram is getting worse and worse."
Zhou Hexuan immediately understood the reason. Trams are fashionable and cheap, so people will naturally choose to take trams when traveling. He asked again: "How much money can you earn in a day?"
The coachman replied: "It depends on the situation. If the business is good, you can earn seven or eight cents, and if the business is bad, you can only earn three or four cents."
Zhou Hexuan calculated the current prices and said, "That's not bad. You can save a lot of money every day."
"Why save money?" The coachman sighed repeatedly, "Every day I have to pay 1 jiao to the car dealer, and I still need 2 jiao to eat by myself. Counting miscellaneous expenses, I spend at least 4 jiao or more every day. I live alone.
It’s okay. I have enough money to go to restaurants and drink every now and then. But I still have a wife and children to support at home, so I work from dawn to dusk. I’ll be thankful if I can ensure that the whole family doesn’t go hungry.”
Zhou Hexuan was silent, it was really difficult for the people in the Republic of China.
A few minutes later, the driver stopped the car in front of the courtyard and said, "Sir, we've arrived."
"Thank you for your hard work." Zhou Hexuan handed the driver 20 copper coins.
The coachman refused repeatedly: "It's too much, you gave me too much!"
Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "The rest is a tip."
"This...how is this so embarrassing?" The coachman smiled helplessly, his mouth full of yellow teeth showing, and he was happy but also a little embarrassed.
"You've been shopping with me for a long time, so you deserve a tip." Zhou Hexuan got out of the car holding the things he bought.
The driver hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Sir, I'll help you get it. Leave this rough work to me. Just stay here and look after the car for me."
Zhou Hexuan did not refuse, handed him the pots and pans, and stood beside the rickshaw to wait.
The coachman took two trips to finish moving the things. He came back and said gratefully: "Sir, I put the things under the eaves of the east chamber. You are a good man. I wish you great wealth and a long life."
"Thank you." Zhou Hexuan nodded with a smile and walked into the courtyard.
The door of the main room suddenly opened, and the landlord Shan Chengfu came over to say hello: "Where are you buying things?"
"Hello Uncle Fu, I bought some daily necessities." Zhou Hexuan greeted.
Shan Chengfu chatted with him for a while and asked: "Do you pay your water and coal bills alone, or do I pay them for you together?"
Well, what the time-travelers first face is not the grand cause of saving the country and the people, but the trivial daily chores. Not only the water and coal bills, but also the treatment of excrement and urine. Sanitation workers need to pay from 8 to 9 o'clock every morning.
Will come and collect the filth in the toilet.
This is equivalent to the water, electricity and property management fees during the Republic of China.
Zhou Hexuan took out dozens of copper coins and asked the landlord to help with these chores. After placing all the daily necessities he bought, he went to Li's house with a piece of pork and said, "Auntie, I'm too lazy to start a business by myself. I might do it in the future.
I often come to your house to eat. This is the meat I bought at the vegetable market, and I bothered you to cook it."
Mrs. Zhou is not the kind of person who cares about everything. She took the pork and said: "Don't waste money in the future. Just tell me when you are hungry. Have you had lunch?"
"We ate outside." Zhou Hexuan said with a smile.
…
After returning to the room and spreading out the newly bought manuscript paper, Zhou Hexuan filled the pen with ink, sat at the table and began to think about what to write.
Zhou Hexuan majored in history as an undergraduate and has some understanding of the situation in the Republic of China. Nowadays, the dispute between the old and new literature in the Chinese literary world has basically been settled. The new literature advocated since the May Fourth Movement has won a great victory, and vernacular writing has become a
social consensus.
Nowadays, when it comes to submitting articles to newspapers and magazines, there are only two options: serious literature and popular literature. Serious literature refers to various poems, essays, essays and pure literary novels; popular literature mainly focuses on entertainment, such as martial arts novels, romance novels, and even
Erotic novels mainly selling meat.
Of course, there is no strict boundary between the two, and they are mainly distinguished by the ideological connotation expressed in the works.
Zhou Hexuan thought about it for a long time, and finally decided to write some recreational works first, such as martial arts novels. Pure literature is too high-end, and he doesn't want to touch it for the time being - the main reason is that martial arts novels have a lot of words, often tens or millions.
The characters can be serialized for a long time, and the royalties will continue to flow.
Among the five masters of martial arts novels, Jin, Gu, Wen, Liang, and Huang, Gu Long, Wen Ruian, and Huang Yi were first excluded. The works of these three were so trendy that it would be difficult for readers to accept them at once in the Republic of China.
Liang Yusheng's works had too many limitations, so Zhou Hexuan also ruled them out, and Jin Daxia's novels were the safest.
So which work of Jin Yong should you copy?
Zhou Hexuan wrote the trilogy "The Condor", "The Legend of the Condor" and "The Swordsman" on the manuscript paper. After much consideration, he finally chose "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", which is a perfect introduction to the new martial arts.
but.
Recalling the plot of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", Zhou Hexuan was preparing to organize the text to start writing, when the content of the original work suddenly emerged crazily and swirled in his mind.
Goldfinger?
"The vast water of the Qiantang River, day and night, endlessly bypasses Niujia Village in Lin'an and flows eastward into the sea. There are dozens of cypress trees lined up along the riverside, with leaves as red as fire. It is August...
…”
If Zhou Hexuan had divine help, he quickly wrote down the content of the novel without adding any details. In one afternoon, he actually wrote more than 10,000 words.
Zhou Hexuan's calligraphy is not bad, and he writes in cursive, which greatly reduces the trouble of traditional characters.
In fact, simplified characters have existed since ancient times, and writing Chinese characters is a process of continuous simplification. Many simplified characters appear in the inscriptions, calligraphy and paintings of the Tang and Song Dynasties preserved by later generations. Although Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty ordered that traditional Chinese characters must be used, even his ministers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs
The engravings on the cards are all in simplified Chinese because they are easier to read.
Even if Zhou Hexuan's manuscript is all in simplified Chinese, there will be no problem in taking it to the newspaper office. Writing all in traditional Chinese will make him look mentally ill.
In the evening, the third son of the Li family came knocking on the door and shouted: "Brother Zhou, it's time to eat!"
"coming!"
Zhou Hexuan responded, picked up the novel manuscript of more than 10,000 words, and planned to ask Li Shoumin to hand it over to the newspaper editor tomorrow.
